


The Malady is the Cure

by janescott



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Magic Realism, Ravens, sherlock rebang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janescott/pseuds/janescott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Sherlock rebang on LJ. Art by shiroi_ten: http://m33.photobucket.com/albumview/albums/sh1r01_tensh1/ShiroiTensherlockrb1.jpg.html</p><p>"Sherlock is a raven (however you'd like to interpret this). Loosely based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe. "And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming/And the lamp-light o'er hum streaming o'er hum streaming throws his shadow on the floor." I went with magic realism-ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Malady is the Cure

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by magenta and red_adam Thanks to shiroi_ten for the gorgeous and inspiring art :-)
> 
> Nothing belongs to me; I'm just playing with the action figures. I'll put them away carefully.

It might be expected that when Sherlock dreams, he dreams of flight. Or perhaps falling.

But when Sherlock dreams, in the fundamentally contrary way he has, he dreams of gravity.

As a child, these dreams leave nothing behind except an impression of weight. Not a crushing weight, but something comforting. Something … warm. It feels like a memory, if he remembers it at all. Usually it fades.

He never mentions it to anyone; not to his mother, or to his ever-more distant older brother. He hoards the dreams like a dragon with its treasure in the fantasy books he spends one long, drowsy summer devouring, before Mycroft - from his lofty, 17 year old position of wisdom - sneers at them for being “beneath Sherlock’s intelligence.”

Sherlock stacks the books neatly in a box and gives them to the housekeeper to pass on to her son.

He has the odd sensation when he hands the box over that he’s going to float away; drift away from his home and the earth, spread his wings …

That night he does dream of flight – a terrible, dark and tearing nightmare of getting higher and higher, and smaller and smaller until he wakes up screaming and sweating in his bed.

It’s just him and his mother, rattling around in the too-big house - Mycroft is away at university and their father is … well. He’s … away.

His mother’s room is at the other end of the house, so there is no one to hear him as he fights to calm his racing heart and untangle his already too-long legs from his sheets. He battles everything into submission and lies down, staring into the dark.

He doesn’t go back to sleep.

He’s plagued by nightmares of flying until the louder demands of teenage hormones take over his body and his dreams without his consent.

He’s angry at this betrayal and it spills and leaks out into his waking life. Sherlock feels untethered suddenly - he’s 13 and too tall for his arms and legs, too gangly and awkward to be anything but angry and cutting, permanently on the defensive.

His mother deals with this development by retreating further and further into her own head, leaving a wary and weary Mycroft to deal with Sherlock on his rare visits to the family home.

Sherlock resents being _dealt with_ and aches for something that he’s lost - the ability to dream about gravity; about being … grounded, for want of a better word.

He feels like he’s grieving and all he has in this huge pile of _stone_ is an indifferent older brother stuttering about _wet dreams_.

Sherlock picks a fight that blows up and they don’t speak for the remainder of Mycroft’s time at home.

Or for the next six months.

Sherlock tells himself he’s relieved, but he still has nightmares about flying and confused, humid dreams about a boy at his school, two years ahead and Sherlock’s polar opposite.

Sherlock shores up these dreams as best he can, chipping away a mental room in his mind, even as he tries to bury the nightmares.

He says nothing to his mother or Mycroft. 

He battles through secondary school and plots his escape to Cambridge.

University is like landing on another planet. Sherlock soaks in everything that he can - the knowledge, the history, the _people_. 

It’s the people that Sherlock truly finds fascinating, in a laboratory-study kind of way. He studies them as closely as he dares, learning the finer details of what it is to be human.

He learns many things at Cambridge. 

He learns that people will almost always skew to their basest emotions - lust, anger, greed. He learns that if you just sit and _watch_ you can learn almost everything you need to know about a person. 

He learns that he’s the only one who dreams - or used to dream - about gravity; something that he still misses, even after nine years.

And for the first time in his life - at the very tender age of 19 - Sherlock Holmes falls in love.

By rights, he shouldn’t have come across Victor Trevor at Cambridge at all. Victor is a year older, and Sherlock keeps to himself as much as possible, staying away from his fellow students, his professors … everyone. 

They’re studying vastly different disciplines, Sherlock well immersed in the world of chemistry and Victor with his head and heart in the long-distant past, focusing on Classical History. 

And yet. Call it fate, or the capricious will of the universe, but their paths cross one rain and wind-soaked day. In the most mundane way, their paths clash as they crash into each other, hurrying opposite ways down a narrow lane.

There’s shock and silence for a moment, then someone is babbling right at Sherlock.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I had my head down and I didn’t even _see_ you there - are you all right? Here, let me - “

Sherlock sits on the path, dazed as he watches the somewhat blurred figure race around, gathering up his papers. His hands are scraped from the gravel, and he thinks he’s hurt his knee but what really - inexplicably - hurts are his shoulders. 

They’re tingling with something not-quite pain, but not-quite pleasant either and it reminds Sherlock of his old dreams. 

He gathers as much of himself as he can before standing and nearly collapsing before the other student rushes to his side.

“Here, none of that! I think you’ve hurt your ankle or something …”

“K-knee,” Sherlock manages to get out, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth and his blood roaring in his ears. “It’s. I’ve hurt my knee.”

“Right. Well, let me put your books in my bag - luckily there’s nothing in it, I forgot my textbook can you imagine? I have an essay due tomorrow - oh, I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I mean, I’ll take you to student health.”

“No, really you don’t - “

“I rather think I do, given that I was the one who ran you over just now. Victor Trevor.”

Sherlock stares blankly at the hand held out to him and blinks rain out of his eyes. “Oh, right your hands. Sorry. Habit.”

“Sherlock. M-my name is Sherlock Holmes and you really don’t have to - “

“Yes. I do. It’s my fault you’re in such a state. Come on Sherlock Holmes. Let’s get you sorted.”

By the time they make it to student health, Sherlock is completely smitten. He doesn’t say anything because - aside from helping him to the centre - Victor hasn’t said or done anything to indicate that he’s going to like Sherlock any better than his own classmates.

But Victor, Sherlock has to admit grudgingly after a few minutes in the waiting room, is different. He chatters easily to Sherlock about anything and everything that comes into his head, talking about his studies, his rooms at his College, the rain, anything and everything.

He even lingers after, intent on seeing Sherlock back to his own rooms. 

“My rooms are well out of your way, and I’m _fine_. You don’t have to see me to my door.”

Victor just grins, and it’s so open and bright that Sherlock has to smile back, even as he feels the pressing, prickling weight on his shoulders again. 

He links his arm through Sherlock’s and resettles his backpack. “Well, no, Sherlock, I don’t _have_ to. Maybe I want to. Come on.”

Sherlock is grateful for the familiar warmth and sanctuary of his own rooms and he awkwardly invites Victor in “for tea, or something. I think I have tea …”

“You have your own room,” Victor says idly, studying the neat titles on Sherlock’s bookshelf. 

“Yes. I, um, prefer it that way.”

He doesn’t say that no one in his year will room with him, and gladly gave up one of the few coveted single rooms. He doesn’t say - then or later - how it digs under his skin, and hurts him in the same place that the dreams about flying still stab at him. 

Sherlock moves off to make the tea - limping a little but his knee will be fine in a day or two according to the doctor.

“I myself prefer privacy,” Victor says and he’s far too close, his breath on the back of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock starts and drops the mug he’d been holding, grabbing the edge of the table as the pain in his shoulders spikes suddenly and sharp. 

He whirls to find Victor standing far too close for anything close to comfort, his green eyes wide and startled. “I’m sorry, I … I didn’t mean to scare you, I thought -” he runs his hand through his hair, making it stick slick and wet to his head.

He laughs at that, rubbing it ineffectually on the front of his jacket, his eyes still on Sherlock’s face. He smiles, tentative. “I’m sorry. I’m making a complete hash of this, and I’m freezing, and you’re _looking_ at me like - “ he stops and takes a deep breath. 

“I don’t suppose I could borrow a towel? And then I’ll take that tea.”

Sherlock blinks, unable to move as the pressing, prickling pain rolls under the skin of his shoulders again. He manages to draw in a breath, and then another and finds a small, half-smile from somewhere.

“I just - I didn’t hear you, that’s all. Bloody carpet. At least the, um, mug didn’t break. Towel, right. Wait here. You can hang your coat on the back of the d -”

As first kisses go, it’s nothing like Sherlock expects it to be. It’s short and he registers more about the press of Victor’s cold nose against his cheek than he does about the feel of Victor’s mouth against his own. 

Victor pulls back but stays in Sherlock’s space, so close that Sherlock can see the tiny flecks of tawny-brown in Victor’s eyes. 

“Well you’re not slapping my face or ordering me out, so I’m taking _that_ as a good sign.” Victor laughs, and it sounds a little shaky to Sherlock’s ears. He swallows hard, his throat suddenly and inexplicably dry. 

“I - “

“Wet clothes,” Victor says gently, coming to his rescue. “And then tea.”

They take turns in Sherlock’s minute bathroom, drying off, changing out of wet clothes. Sherlock lends Victor a faded pair of jeans he never wears, and a worn old green jersey that brings his eyes into sharp relief.

Sherlock absently changes into dry trousers and a dry shirt before tumbling everything into the washing machine in his bathroom and setting it running.

“It shouldn’t take long,” he says, easier in his skin now that he’s dry and finding his feet on his own territory. His shoulders still hurt but the pain has faded, feeling more like distant pins and needles.

He doesn’t mention it to Victor.

They spend all of their spare time together, what can be carved out of lectures and studying and - for Victor - time with his friends. He offers to introduce Sherlock to them, but Sherlock just shakes his head, musters up a smile and resettles his head on Victor’s lap.

“I - no. I’m not good with people. I lack … tact. And I do that - thing that Sebastian calls a trick, I can’t help it and I couldn’t bear it if -”

Victor bends over and kisses him full on the mouth, and Sherlock can feel the vibration of his laugh.

“All right, all right. Just you and me, then.”

Sherlock shifts to a more comfortable position, straddling Victor’s hips and goes back to kissing him, long, slow, sweet-filthy kisses that he loves. Victor spreads his hands on Sherlock’s arse, digging his fingertips in as he pulls him closer.

They haven’t got much further than this - snogging like - as Victor puts it - horny fifteen year olds while their parents are out, but he seems content to go at the pace Sherlock sets for them, which makes Sherlock fall for him just that little bit harder every time.

Now, he rolls his hips against Victor, hard and impatient, his breath short. He feels feverish but not ill, his blood racing and his shoulders prickling and tingling.

“Sherlock …” Victor all but groans against his mouth. “Sherlock, we should, ah, oh god, stop now, I should go - “

“No.” Sherlock says it against Victor’s neck, pressed as close to him as he can get. He can feel the thick hardness of Victor’s cock through the fabric of his jeans and Sherlock all but grinds against him, nearly lost in the sensation.

“No, stay, please. I want, I want you to stay.”

Victor tilts his head so he can look Sherlock in the eye, smoothing one hand through Sherlock’s dark curls, soothing him. Sherlock closes his eyes and leans into Victor’s touch.

“Please. Stay.”

Sherlock opens his eyes and looks at Victor, his gaze steady. “I want you to stay.”

It’s awkward then, as they untangle, unable to quite move away from each other, kissing and nipping and finding skin under shirts. Sherlock has to grip Victor’s hip when Victor nips at his neck, so close to his prickling shoulders that he nearly comes right there.

“Sorry, ah, it’s … um. Sensitive.” He’s babbling but Victor just laughs against his skin, his breath warm and welcome.

Sherlock stands by the bed, suddenly shy. “Sherlock, we don’t have to do this if you’re not ready …”

“No. I mean, I want to. I am ready. I - “ Sherlock takes a deep breath and lets it out, biting his lip before all of his confessions come spilling out at once.

“It’s not that I’m not ready, it’s just that … I have a sort of … birthmark on my shoulders and I don’t know what you’re going to do when you see it and I - “

Victor pushes forward, kissing Sherlock hard and deep, so that his knees buckle and he nearly ends up flat on his back on the bed. Victor pulls back, running his tongue over his bottom lip, like he’s still chasing the taste of Sherlock on his mouth.

“Sherlock, I don’t care. I don’t care what you look like under your shirt. I just - I want to be with you, that’s all. Let me … let me _in_.”

Sherlock draws in another deep breath, closing his eyes. He opens them again and gazes at Victor for a long, weighted moment before nodding and starting to work on the buttons of his shirt.

He unfastens it slowly, before carefully drawing it down his arms and letting it drop to the floor. Victor’s eyes feel like brands on his chest and he resists the urge to cross his arms over himself, to hide. His arms twitch but Victor is faster, reaching out and circling  
one wrist with his hand, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive skin of Sherlock’s inner wrist.

He slides his free hand up Sherlock’s other arm, almost painfully slowly and Sherlock has to bite back a small moan at the touch. It feels like his old dreams, almost. It feels like … gravity. Like landing after a long, long flight. He arches his back and rolls his shoulders, and then it’s Victor’s turn to moan, and take a step closer. 

“Sherlock … god, _Sherlock_.”

Victor reaches out, carefully touching the curve of one shoulder with the tip of his finger. Sherlock shudders under the touch, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

He feels grounded and free at the same time, as Victor traces over the lines of the marks on his shoulders.

“They look like … wings,” Victor says, his voice soft with wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Sherlock.”

Sherlock can’t say anything, his throat is cotton-dry and his senses are overloading with sensation. He fumbles until he finds Victor’s fingers with his own, blindly turning his head towards the touch. 

“Victor, please,” he manages, his voice low and raspy. “If you keep doing that ….” his courage and his voice fail him at the same time but he lets out a breath when Victor lets his fingers trail back down Sherlock’s arm, hooking them in the top of Sherlock’s trousers.

“Please,” Sherlock says again, and this time, he’s not at all certain what he’s asking for.

Later, when Victor is finally pressing him into the bed, pressing into him for the first time, Sherlock realises that maybe it doesn’t matter. 

He locks his legs around Victor’s hips, pushes his hands through Victor’s hair and closes his eyes, because he feels like he’s skidding along a wide, endless road and like he’s about to take off all at once and it’s no enough and too much all at once.

Victor bites down on Sherlock’s shoulder when he comes, burying his groans in Sherlock’s skin, and it’s all Sherlock needs. He’s gasping and sweating; nearly screaming and _coming_ so hard that he sees spikes and sparks of black and grey.

They lie together for a long stretch of time, their breathing and heart-rates racing away on them. Sherlock can’t stop himself from touching Victor wherever he can reach, counting the knobs of his spine over and over again in his head, tracing the shape of his shoulderblades, feeling the line of the bone under the skin. 

Victor is peppering Sherlock’s shoulders with small, close mouthed kisses that spike under his skin and relieve the pressuring itch that he’s been living with ever since he lost his dreams of gravity at the age of 10. 

He drifts off like that, with Victor’s mouth still against his skin. He doesn’t dream, but it feels like something is trying to break through, _pushing_ at him to let it in. He stirs, restless and only quiets when Victor - asleep beside him - turns and curls his body around Sherlock’s.

He settles, but he doesn’t dream of anything for the rest of the night. He wakes rested, but feeling as though he’s spent the night chasing through his mind, looking for something important that he’s lost.

It doesn’t last, of course. Sherlock is 19, and raw in the world, and Victor can’t quite understand how to be what Sherlock needs. 

It lasts long enough to change Sherlock’s life, and to remind him of his old, childhood dreams of gravity that still elude him. They’re somehow tied with his … birthmark, and with Victor, but it’s not quite _there_ , it’s not quite _right_.

The next thing Sherlock falls for is far more destructive. At first, he finds the fine white powder fascinating. He tells himself that it’s a matter of science, and of research: cataloguing the effects of the innocuous seeming powder on his system. He falls so far down the rabbit hole into a terrible, tragic wonderland that he only just comes back to himself - hanging on by his fingertips - the third time Mycroft finds him and drags him to rehab.

He drifts, for a while, bored and angry. He finds himself at the Tower of London nearly every day, studying the ravens. He envies them, in a way, and when he’s there, his shoulders prickle and prick and _itch_ until he can hardly think. 

Mycroft intervenes, again, and Sherlock would resent it but his brother brings him a man - a man with a gruff voice and tired eyes, who tells Sherlock that the metropolitan London Police sometimes need a little extra help, and someone with Sherlock’s sharp eyes and skills, well …

The work fills a void, but it’s the void left by Victor, and by the cocaine, and it’s not enough. It doesn’t bring back the dreams that Sherlock craves. Instead, he still has sweat-soaked nightmares about flying, and shadowy almost-dreams about chasing something elusive. 

Then, Sherlock meets John and once again, everything in his life changes.

He’s in the lab at Bart’s, working because working makes him feel like he can stay on the ground for a while, like he’s not suddenly going to fly away and disappear, when Mike Stamford comes in with someone. Sherlock looks. And then he looks again.

His eyes move over John rapidly, taking in the surface things, the details that just don’t _matter_ and he almost sighs in relief when he meets John’s eyes.

Because _there_ he is. Sherlock - just - resists the impulse to let out a breath he feels like he’s been holding for 25 years. He says nothing, letting his thoughts race ahead of him as he assesses John’s appearance.

They arrange to meet at Baker Street and Sherlock breathes out again, shifting his shoulders as it feels like something is pressing down on them, pressing him into the ground itself. He resists the urge to stretch up into the feeling, to revel in it. 

Finally, he can stop looking. It sounds sentimental and romantic and nonsensical in his head, but he has his gravity.

He doesn’t want to waste any more time than he already has but they have just met and first there’s an insane cab driver to stop and there’s getting to know each other and there’s … so many _things_ in his way!

One night, Sherlock wakes screaming and sweating from an old, familiar nightmare. But this time, there are gentle hands on his skin, and a soothing voice: “Sherlock - _Sherlock_ wake up, I could hear you from my room, bloody hell!”

“John?” His voice is hoarse and rough and he blinks open his eyes, squinting in the yellow light from the lamp by the bed.

“Yes of course, John, who were you expecting?”

Sherlock sits up, slowly and carefully, and there’s John with his tired eyes, and kind smile and his …. _grounding_. He’s holding a glass of water that he gives to Sherlock.

“Drink that down, go on.”

Sherlock clutches the glass in two hands like a child, unable to hide the slight shake as the water trembles in the glass. John steps closer, frowning. John puts the tips of his fingers against Sherlock's wrist and takes his pulse, his forehead creasing in concern.

“Your heart rate … Sherlock that’s much too fast.”

“It’s … all right. No, really, John, it’s all right, I’m _fine_ it’s just the nightmare and it’s y -”

 _you being so close_ but he bites down on that.

“It’s what, Sherlock?” John asks, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, taking the glass from Sherlock’s hands and putting it on the floor.

“What is it?”

Sherlock closes his eyes and takes a breath. It’s now, or he’s going to lose his courage forever.

“It’s … you.”

“Me? What are you talking about?”

“Can I … show you something?”

Sherlock waits but John doesn’t say anything. Sherlock moves slowly, pulling the ragged t-shirt he sleeps in over his head, discarding it on the floor.

He waits, and he watches as John reaches out a hand, tentatively touching the tip of one finger to the prominent point of Sherlock’s shoulder.

“It … looks like wings,” he says, softly, tracing the curve of the pattern over Sherlock’s shoulder. “Like a bird is … holding you down.”

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice is still raspy but he daren’t move, or swallow or do … anything.

“And you’ve been waiting for me.” 

John’s voice - to Sherlock’s immense relief - is full of wonder and something … eternal and intimate.

“Yes. Since I was 10 and I … stopped dreaming of gravity.”

John blinks in surprise but he doesn’t take his hand away, tracing the patterns of the wings over and over again until Sherlock tangles his hands in the sheets and bites back a groan. John must hear something anyway because he snatches his hand away.

“I’m sorry, does it hurt?”

Sherlock shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to - oh _god_ /

“No. It doesn’t hurt, exactly. It’s … something else. _Please_ John, please.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

Sherlock doesn’t open his eyes, he doesn’t know what he will do if John rejects him, or turns his back, he can’t - he’s cut off by the feel of John’s hands on his shoulders. John’s fingers are gentle but not hesitant, tracing over patterns of wings that even Sherlock didn’t know that he had.

He keeps his eyes closed but tilts his head back against the headboard, groaning with something like relief when John moves to straddle his hips. Sherlock reaches out, feeling for John by instinct, needing to be close and to touch and reassure himself that this is real - that this is the person who will truly stop him from flying away, from flying apart.

He’s hard - he can feel it, insistent and pulsing, pushing against the soft cotton of his pyjama pants, but it’s nearly irrelevant. All that matters right now is John and his hands that trace and track over and over on Sherlock’s shoulders - tracing old patterns and tracking new ones, trailing his fingers over and over until Sherlock grabs at John’s hips, digging his fingers into the soft skin as he comes, a blinding, nearly painful flash of _everything_.

John kisses him then, on his neck, his cheeks, his still-closed eyelids, and then finally on his mouth, and Sherlock opens to John then, gasping.

They lie together in silence for what feels like an eternity, John still tracing patterns into Sherlock’s skin but careful to avoid his shoulders.

“They’re darker,” he says eventually, softly, as though he doesn’t want to break whatever spell has been cast on both of them.

“Your … wings are darker. Almost black.”

“Mmmmm.”

 

“I wonder if it means anything. I mean, beyond the fact you seem to be some kind of … bird.”

Sherlock reaches out to pull John in closer, grumbling until John gets it and rests his head on Sherlock’s chest, just below where the marks - feathers - stop. 

“Does it have to? Mean anything.”

John turns his head so he can meet Sherlock’s eyes. “No, I suppose not.”

He moves then, and Sherlock wonders if he’ll ever get over the fear - that John will one day think it’s all too much and get up and keep going, even though Sherlock _needs_ him like he needs to start dreaming of gravity again.

But John just straddles Sherlock’s hips and smiles at him, as Sherlock reaches out his own hand, tracing the scarring on John’s own shoulder. He frowns as he traces and tracks his own pattern into the damaged, corded skin and it’s his turn to watch as John closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

“Ah, god, Sherlock, that’s …”

John’s voice fades to nothing as Sherlock draws his own pattern on to John’s skin - a pattern of wings, a sprinkle of black … he’s barely paying attention when John starts coming, soft moans spilling from his mouth as he draws in ragged breath after ragged breath. 

He opens his eyes and looks at Sherlock. 

The room is silent except for John’s ragged breathing and Sherlock’s speeding pulse. He stares at the shape of the wings on John’s shoulder and offers a small smile.

John blinks, and blinks again before dipping his head, like he can’t keep it up on his neck any longer.

“ _Sherlock_ ”. John’s head is still down, so his voice is muffled. Sherlock places the palm of one hand on John’s face, what he can see, and he says nothing because everything that he needs to know is contained in the syllables of his name, falling from John’s mouth. 

 

Moving off the bed, cleaning up, rinsing out Sherlock’s water glass and laying it on the draining board … these are mundane, everyday things in the face of a night of so many revelations. Sherlock doesn’t need these routines to feel grounded, to feel gravity on his shoulders, but he knows that John does. So he gets up when John gets up, follows him to the bathroom, and into the kitchen as John moves around, doing horrendously _normal_ things until Sherlock grabs his arm and drags him back to the bedroom.

When Sherlock dreams, it might be expected that he dreams of flying, or of escape. Spreading his wings and disappearing into the ether.

Truth be told, those old dreams are Sherlock’s greatest fear. He fears flying apart, falling to pieces and disappearing. He fears it so deeply that sometimes he still dreams of it; still wakes up sweating and screaming in the deepest and darkest watches of the night.

But now there’s someone else. Someone who will reach out, even in his sleep, to unerringly touch Sherlock on the shoulder, to smooth over his wings until Sherlock can quiet, can breathe again. Until he can lie down and curl his body around John’s, pressing his mouth to the prickling painful marks on John’s shoulders. 

They’re forming slowly but one day they will match Sherlock’s own.

On that day, Sherlock knows, he will dream of nothing but gravity.

When John dreams, it might be expected that he dreams of war and death, of the sky blazing with fire, of the unbelievable hurts humankind can inflict on each other. 

He does dream of these things, but he also dreams of flying. Of launching into the sky riding air draughts and feeling the wind feather through his wings as he stretches them across the horizon.

He dreams of a large, black bird that is getting away from him, up and up and up, until it is nothing more than a black dot, even by John’s sharp bird vision

When this happens, John reaches into the sky and catches the big black bird by its wing, and brings it back to earth, even as sky fills with their mingled cries.

John brings the bird back to where it belongs.

Where _he_ belongs.


End file.
